


The Doctor's Spaceship

by castles_inthesky



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: AU, Character Study, Gen, Human!Doctor, TARDIS - Freeform, kid!doctor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-23
Updated: 2012-12-23
Packaged: 2017-11-22 02:40:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/604909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/castles_inthesky/pseuds/castles_inthesky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A story of the Doctor's spaceship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Doctor's Spaceship

**Author's Note:**

> This was entirely my friend Sophie's idea, I just put words to it

He had a dream, to travel out and see the stars.

"I'm gonna make a spaceship, just you wait and see."

He's had the dream, the same one, for as long as I can remember, ever since i started caring for him. Maybe even before that.

\---

Everyday without fail he would sit by me, bright eyes sparkling just that little bit brighter, his voice carrying a childish, innocent excitement as he told me about his spaceship. He would look out into the yard of blooming flowers and lush greenery in the spring, twirl a stalk of dogweed in his fingers (he had picked it up earlier when we were out in the yard playing hide-and-seek), and talk about his spaceship. He would tell me about it again in the summer when I was towelling him dry after a long swim in the pool, his little face buried under the thick white towels so it was only a voice I could hear. He would pick up fallen leaves in the autumn, tracing the orange-brown veins in them as he drifted off into his fantasy land, absent-mindedly talking about his spaceship. In the winter - well he didn't like winter very much, and often he would sit infront of the fireplace, a little bundle of woolen clothes and scarves, and sulk into his mug of hot chocolate. "I'm gonna make a spaceship that travels through time, just you wait and see", he would say. He said he would travel back to the spring, and that he would never need to have winter again. In those times I would hum - not always in agreement, but to reassure him anyway - and smile as I sipped my own cup of hot tea. 

\---

He's said many great things about that spaceship of his. He was going to travel back in time, meet famous people, talk to people who would change the world. He wanted to travel into the future, see what was yet to come.

\---

His mum brought over sheets of paper and a box of crayons one day. As the conversation shifted to the topic of his spaceship once again he grabbed a chunky black crayon from the box, and flipped over his piece of paper that was covered with his drawing of the big blue sea. "It's gotta look like a house, you see," he picked at the fat head of the crayon, peeling off a spot of yellow that had stained it, "I want to show people my spaceship, and they can live in it. I want it to be homely." His crayon produced a big rectangular box on the blank paper, the black line still holding smudges of yellow. I asked him why it was rectangular, not square like a house. 

He looked at me strangely, and said, "I'm drawing a police box. You know, one of those things that help people catch bad guys. You lock them up inside and call the police." 

"Why a police box then?" I asked distractedly, picking at the frayed edges of my (admittedly blank) paper.

"I wanna use the police box to catch bad guys, so I can help people," he replied, drawing crooked squares on the box. "Look! I'm drawing windows and doors, so it'll be more like a house!"

"But it's so tiny, only you can fit in it." I pointed out.

"Don't be silly. It's going to be bigger on the inside, of course! On the outside it's small so I can travel anywhere easily, but it's gonna be big on the inside so it can fit tons of people. And I can invite everybody over for tea!" He dropped his black crayon, letting it roll away carelessly and reaching for a blue one to color his drawing in.

"Why blue?" I gestured to all the other colors.

"I like blue."

"What about pink?" I picked up a crayon the color of carnations.

"I like blue."

"How about purple?"

"I like blue. What's wrong with blue?" He stuck out his bottom lip like the petulant child he was, and continued to color in his spaceship.

"But blue is such a common color, how are people going to find the box?"

He scratched his face with the blunt end of the crayon, pondering. 

"Oh I know!" His threw his hands up in the air, his face lighting up with excitement. 

He picked up the box of crayons, turning it upside-down and pouring all the colorful stubs out in one fluid motion. The blue crayon was quickly forgotten as he picked up a yellow one out of the mess.

"Love, you have a smudge-"

"I'm drawing a little light on the top of my spaceship. That way people can find it in the dark!" He furrowed his brow in concentration, his crayon printing a messy draft of a yellow beacon at the top of his drawing

I looked at the blue smudge on his cheek and smiled.

\---

I looked into to his room one day to find him rummaging through his closet. 

"What are you doing?"

"Oh good! You're just in time to help me choose my outfit!" 

He was across the room in an instant, tiny fingers closing around my wrist.

"Outfit? What for?"

"My outfit. When I go travelling in my spaceship I wanna have an outfit, of course."

I let myself be led across the room, sidestepping piles of clothes and stray socks that had been flung away in his search. 

"How's this?" He swiped a bowtie from the back of his closet.

"A bowtie?" I stared at the piece of cloth the color of wine.

"Yeah. A bowtie. Bowties are cool." He looped the neckstrap of the pre-tied bowtie around his neck, letting it hang loose infront of his chest. He dove back into his closet, emerging with another part of his 'space costume'. 

"What's that?" I stared blankly at the red hat in his hand. 

"It's a fez. I like fezzes. They're cool." He placed the fez carefully on his head, the too-big rim drooping across his face and covering his left eye. He split into a big grin, his face lighting up with joy.

"How do I look?"

I embraced him, all bowtie and fez and elephant pajamas.

"Like a true spaceman."

\---

It was a silly accident. He fell off the monkey bars when he was playing with his friend - it was the kind of accident he would look back on later in life and have a good laugh about.

But at that moment - lying in his hospital bed, swimming in his hospital drapes that were way too big for him - he didn't seem to be in a laughing mood at all.

"Hey," I grinned as I settled into the plastic chair near his bed. "How are you feeling?"

"Like a doll." He sniffled. 

"A doll? Why?" I squirmed in the uncomfortable chair.

"Y'know, one of those dolls that have strings attached to their arms and legs, and people pull the strings to make them move." He glared at his brace, as if that would somehow ease the awkward angle his leg was at. 

"Oh." I gave up trying to find a decently comfortable position, curling into the chair with a sigh. "You mean a marionette."

We settled into a comfortable silence after that, neither of us saying anything, but content with the relative quietness that stretched out in the room. I fingered the metal brace holding his leg up in the air. He took interest in a ball of loose thread in his blanket. 

"I don't like it." The mechanical beeping and humming of machines had always been consistent, dull and muted, so when he spoke it didn’t really break a silence, but it took me by surprise nonetheless. 

"Oh love, it's okay. You'll be up out of this bed and playing with your friends again in no time-"

"I'm not talking about that." The tone in his words shut off whatever feel-good speech I had prepared in mind. My words shrunk back down my throat, and for once I was at a loss. 

He paused before continuing, almost contemplative of my reaction. "My name. I don't like my name. I want a different one."

He shifted in his hospital bed, and a faint smile appeared on his face (although it didn’t quite reach his eyes). "I wanna be called the Doctor. Just the Doctor, because I want to help people. Like the doctor who's helping me now. I wanna be like him when I go travelling in my spaceship, when I save lives. I'm the Doctor." 

I was glad for any kind of change in the heavy atmosphere, but I wasn’t quite sure if I liked this one. I went with it nonetheless. 

"Well my little Doctor," I smoothed a hand over his hair, flattening some stray strands. "You better get some rest if you want to have enough energy to travel through space and save people."

He nodded, the intensity in his eyes returning, and half-turned his head, as if pondering the sentence seriously. "Alright."

I spent the rest of the afternoon looking at his sleeping figure.

\---

Eventually he grew up, and didn't need me anymore. That being said and done, after the tearful farewell I never saw him again. Many years passed, and gradually he faded from my memory too, leaving only phantoms of memories and whispers of something not quite there. 

But I will always remember that he had a dream. A dream to go out and see the stars.


End file.
